


ALIVE

by A_Shark_Named_Max



Category: Borderlands (Video Games), Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, it's Borderlands so murder is free, there's a lot of murder because no one cares about bandits but there is plenty of trauma, this au is just an excuse for Janey and Athena to interact with Edelgard and Byleth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26314852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Shark_Named_Max/pseuds/A_Shark_Named_Max
Summary: Let me tell you a story.Cult planets, bandits and fake sirens. Oh my.Sometimes all you really need to survive the borderlands is good friends and to remember that corporations are full of it no matter what their pr says.
Relationships: Athena/Janey Springs, Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	1. a junker with a heart of gold

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, welcome to something I've been working on FOREVER.
> 
> Borderlands is one of my favorite games but it sure does love to revel it it's violence and last time I checked, no one in 3H really ENJOYS killing. But at least there is plenty of trauma to go around.
> 
> There won't be really a plot, it'll mostly just be shenanigans that are happening until I'm done. I don't plan for this to go for very long though.

She could feel the Eridium flowing through her veins, uncomfortably hot and almost burning from where it was being pumped from the machines in the room to the tubes connected to her body. She tried to move her arms but found she had been strapped down to the table, they did this after she tried to rip the Eridium connectors from her body during a particularly bad emotional fit and she nearly bled to death.

She almost wishes they hadn’t been so quick to stop it.

From where she was laying, Edelgard could just make out the shadows in the windows of the observation deck above her, she knew what this meant, they were gonna do more trial runs, needing to see just how far along her powers were. So far she was one of their only test subjects to not be corrupted or horribly mutated by the Eridium, from what she could make out from the whispers the scientists when they thought she wasn’t listening, it seemed like there was only one other that was still alive. She had no idea if that survivor was one of her siblings, her chest ached with wanting to know but no matter how much she begged for answers they remained stubbornly silent.

Maybe if she was lucky, she could grab one of the scientists again and melt him. The memory of last time where she took one by surprise when they were switching out the connectors, grabbing his head and watching as the Eridium flowed to her hands and she could feel the burning heat ebb away his skin and bone before his skull cracked from the pressure. Right, the restraints weren’t just from her breakdown.

She blinked and was in another room, no longer was she strapped down or had the heavy Eridium connectors except for one that was used for testing, the metal collar around her neck burned and was freezing at the same time. She watched as the other doors connected to the room opened and multiple beasts rushed in and started attacking each other for a moment before realizing she was in there with them. 

Just another day.

It wasn’t even interesting anymore, Edelgard barely blinked before the entire room was filled with melted and charred bodies, her hands shook from the exertion of power. The doors opened again and she watched as psychoes and bandits filled the room, they always started off with animals before moving on to people; at least they haven’t made her kill innocents, as far as she knows at least.

Bandits were just bandits, no matter how much they screamed.

Edelgard wasn’t sure how long time had passed, but her body felt weak, her hands hurt and the collar was burning hotter the longer she was in this room. She wasn’t sure why, maybe it was just the pain making her frustrated, but she could feel the power building up and her hands were aching more and more, she screamed maybe and attacked the observation windows. It wouldn’t work, somehow they were strong enough to withstand her powers, it wasn’t the first time she had done this. When she woke up, she was once again in her room, strapped down to the table with the Eridium connectors hooked back up to her body, tomorrow wouldn’t be any different.

If she could cry, she would, all she could do is watch the shadows above her before she grew too tired from the test trials to keep herself awake.

Loud beeping from the alarm she had set on her Echo was what finally woke Edelgard and instead of the sterile ceiling of the lab, the dirty ceiling of their ship was what greeted her.

That same nightmare of a memory that didn’t seem so long ago.

She didn’t really dream anymore, mostly Edelgard would just sleep and only have darkness before she woke back up, but if she was unlucky, memories of her time in that lab would be what awaited her during sleep.

If it would get to be too much, sometimes she would just wander around, doing checkups on things that didn’t need them and would get scolded by Dorothea or Hubert for not getting any sleep.

She needed to get up, prepare for when they touched down on Elpis and comb through the DAHL facility that Claude had told them about, if they were lucky then maybe they would have something to send back to sell. Edelgard wanted to make this quick, from what Claude had been telling her, Hyperion had been seen around here for whatever reason and she really didn’t want to deal with them, at least not now. At least DAHL and Atlas were long gone, both sent packing with their tails between their legs, but as of right now they didn’t have the resources to deal with any sort of attack from them.

Things were tentative but moving smoothly.

Which is where she should’ve known something bad would happen.

When they had touched down on Elpis, somewhere near Vorago Solitude, they could see from their ship all the rundown DAHL buildings spread out and the large facility that was highlighted by the eerie lighting from the Eridium and the colors of space.

Things seemed pretty abandoned, Petra would provide overwatch while Edelgard, Caspar and Hubert would make their way, what they weren’t expecting was the DAHL soldiers that were corrupted from Eridium and all the damn lasers they had. They didn’t seem to follow them beyond the outskirts but that didn’t mean they stopped shooting, a few lasers hit their ship and judging from the alerts and Bernadetta’s yelling, they needed to make an emergency landing somewhere that wasn’t filled with anything that would shoot or kill them.

Though that was pretty slim.

* * *

“This place sucks.”

“Yes, well, it’s also the only less murdery place on the moon so deal with it.”

True Concordia may not be the most… impressive place they ever had the pleasure of stepping foot in, but considering the state of all the SCAVS and the monsters on Elpis they had the luck of running into, they would take what they would get.

“All we need to do is find a mechanic to fix our ship and then we can leave, I’ll handle that while everyone stretches their legs, Linhardt did mention we are running low on supplies.”

As usual, Linhardt refused to leave the medbay slash his workshop, Bernadetta would never move from the cockpit so that meant everyone else to do the errands while she would find and speak to a mechanic. It did take a few minutes convincing Hubert to not follow her, she was perfectly capable of doing something so simple on her own without him breathing down her neck. Maybe the setback and the DAHL soldiers were making her more snappy, but she was adamant about it.

At first they tried asking the CU5TM-TP but he only annoyed them and kept trying to give them tickets until the physician in the space port took pity on them, the best mechanic in Concordia was Springs. And judging from the bright neon sign saying _‘Springs' Emporium O Stuff’_ , she could probably assume that was where she needed to go. Passing by many apathetic denizens and entering the shop, she could see someone standing in the office and made her way towards the open doorway. She was greeted to the sight of a tall woman with dirty blonde hair cut choppily, bangs hanging over a headband with one peak streak, her clothes were worn and patched and her hands and face had grease stains; what stood out the most though was the burn scars on the left side of her body, from her side to her arm and up to her face. 

Edelgard could feel her hands ache.

She wasn’t sure how long she must have stood there, silently staring, but once the other woman seemed to sense she wasn’t alone in the room and turned her gaze up from her desk, Edelgard tried to not let her eyes wander to her scars.

“Excuse me, our ship is in need of repairs and I was told you would be the best option to help us fix it.”

Springs brushed her bangs out of her face, Edelgard found herself oddly fascinating by the movement. “That’s right, though I’m a junk dealer by trade but if it needs fixing then I’m your woman!”

“Perfect! Thank you!”

“Just pull your ship around to the dock and I’ll have a look at her, I’ll wait.”

Springs returned to whatever she had been focused on before she interrupted her, from just getting a brief look at, it seemed to be a laser gun? Either way, things were looking up.

She Echoed Bernadetta, ignoring the expected scream she received and asked her to pull their ship around to the Emporium’s dock and waited for Springs to give her the verdict. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too expensive, while the things they would take from their raids on corporate facilities would sell for pretty hefty prices, that money was mostly for food, medical supplies and weaponry.

Honestly, they’ve been lucky that their ship only had suffered minor troubles, it was an old DAHL ship they had stolen and considering DAHL just liked leaving their crap around wherever they go, they could just rip parts from almost everywhere.

And if DAHL has previously been on Elpis, hopefully they would have the same luck.

Edeglard watched from the catwalk as Springs poked and prodded where the most recent damage had been from the lasers had been. She could only hope that the mechanic was actually checking for damages and not just pretending until she gouged them for an unfair price.

A sharp pain broke her train of thoughts, she rubbed her wrists where the pain was burning. Even with the Eridium suppressors Linhardt had created for her to help with the addiction, that didn’t stop the occasional pain she would experience. Especially the headaches.

“Miss Hvresvelg!”

Edelgard gripped her wrist behind her back, hopefully hiding the trembling in her arms as Springs climbed up to where she was.

“So nothing too bad, but looks like a few connectors have been burnt pretty badly, if you had left orbit, you would’ve crashed.”

“That sounds a lot bad, actually.”

Springs laughed. “True. But you’re in luck, I was actually getting a huge supply of this stuff from a scavenger by tomorrow. DAHL really left a bunch of junk for us to use.”

Edegarld sighed, she had hoped to be on their way since their original plan fell through but of course, they would need to adapt.

“Alright, I suppose I’ll just have to be patient then.”

“Ah don’t be so down, Elpis isn’t so bad despite the bloodthirsty beasties and trigger happy SCAVS.”

“Oh really?” Edelgard wasn’t buying it, so far everything on this moon was pretty miserable, even the residents in Concordia seem apathetic at best and only passing the time before braving the outside for whatever it was they did for a living.

“Well yeah, sometimes you have to learn how to make your own fun, if I didn’t find ways to preoccupy my time on this rock, I would’ve gone mad ages ago.” Springs’ eyes seemed to pierce right through her, Edelgard wasn’t sure why she felt so warm suddenly as she tugged on the collar of her suit and she could’ve sworn that Springs’ gaze seemed to look her up and down. “If you’re not too busy, I can show you.”

Edelgard needed to say no. All she needed to say was she was too busy and needed to inform everyone of their ship's progress and to make sure everyone had done their jobs and then go over their future endeavors. It’s what she should’ve done.

“I’m…" Her eyes were very alluring. "...alright.”

This wasn’t one of those times.

Springs’ already dark grey eyes seem to become darker, the smile on her face growing a little wider. Why was it so damn warm in here?

“I still need to report to my crew, but I’ll return.” Edelgard cleared her throat as she tugged on her gloves.

“I’ll be waiting.”

Edelgard tried hard not to think about how she felt Spring’s eyes on her as she left the Emporium.

* * *

Edelgard watched from the Emporium’s catwalk as Springs seemed to rip out wires and stick them back in, she wouldn’t be able to understand the first thing about ship repair other than knowing when alerts would go off, that and she feared touching anything too delicate would end up breaking it thanks to her powers. She could feel eyes boring into the back of her head, Edelgard knew Hubert didn’t approve of her sneaking off for hours on end, even if she knew he had been shadowing them for most of it, occasionally leaving to check up on everyone else, she assumed, and coming back to watch over her.

She dearly loved her friend, but sometimes Hubert could be such a mother hen.

“Hey, where were you yesterday?” Ah Dorothea, she knew the others would just assume she was out doing business, but she knew Dorothea wouldn’t be satisfied with just that. She needed to be calm about this, try and not give too much away, she could only just imagine the kind of hell she would face if Dorothea realized just what she had been up to.

Edelgard tugged on her gloves, she was starting to hate this habit. “I was getting our mechanic.” 

Dorothea scoffed. “Okay, but you showed up for five minutes and then left again for almost an entire day, where did you even go?”

By some saving grace, Edelgard didn’t have to worry about answering since Springs picked that moment to walk up towards them, wiping her hands free of grease. “Alright, everything is finished. You should be safe to fly.”

“Good, thank you for your time, Springs. I appreciate it.”

“Oh, the pleasure is all mine. Believe me.” Springs smirked and winked at her before walking back inside her office, Edelgard tried her best to remain composed despite how warm she was beginning to feel. If she had any hope that Dorothea didn’t find that interaction suspicious, it flew right out the door along with Springs as she watched from the corner of her eye the many expressions that her face went through before settling on what she could only describe as ecstatic.

She was doomed.

“Edie-”

“No.”

“I haven’t even said anything yet!”

Edelgard sighed. “I can already imagine the conversation you want to have and I refuse. We had a lovely time together and that was it. The End.” Dorothea snorted, unsatisfied with being shut down. “Fine, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop from trying to get more details.”

“Noted.”


	2. A Mercenary and an Ex-Assassin walk into a bar

“Where is the job?”

“Elpis.”

“The moon, are you gonna be moving rocks?”

“Vault hunting.”

“There’s a vault up there?”

“Apparently, I just care about getting paid.”

* * *

Byleth traced the rim of her drink, watching as the condensation ran down the sides and pulled around the glass.

Half a month had nearly passed, since Athena went up to Elpis and so far it's been radio silence ever since. Which wasn't out of the ordinary, they never communicated with each other during their jobs, Athena for professional reasons and Byleth because she knew that would annoy her.

Not like they would have much to say anyway, even when they would meet up, their conversations could be summed up as 'did you see the new smg Maliwan put out' 'yeah but I prefer the old one, not enough power unlike Jakobs' new masher' 'well yeah, it's Jakobs'. 

The rest of the time, they would mostly sit in silence.

Byleth wasn't sure how friends worked or if she even counted as one to Athena and vice versa, but she could be sure that the other woman was probably the only one who wasn't weirded out by her while everyone thought she was a silent freak.

So she would like to think they were friends, especially since the only other person she hung out with was her dad. And she doesn't think he counts.

Byleth ducked as a bottle flew by her head and smashed against the wall in front of her, without looking she could hear the sounds of a fight and more glass breaking. Just another night at the Purple Skag, but back to her brooding.

She wasn’t sure how long it would take to hunt a vault or what you would even need to do for that, the stories she would read on the EchoNet or hear about sounded too far-fetched to even be believable. Considering vaults were only just believed to be a fairytale until Atlas found one on Promethea and then used whatever it was they found inside to be even bigger assholes, before being taken out (Ha) by the Vault Hunters they were fighting against for the vault on Pandora, though from what she heard, the only thing in there was _‘disappointment and tentacles’_.

Whatever that means. 

But for how long Byleth has known Athena, she was nothing if not efficient, jobs that would take weeks or months would be completed within days. She knew that Atlas made their Lance Assassins to be the absolute elite, they would send down a squad and they would just absolutely slaughter anyone in their way, but that was a squad and not one person. If Byleth hadn’t first-hand stumbled into seeing exactly what Athena could do, watching her cleave through waves of bandits with just her sword and energy shield, her maniac laughter the only thing she could hear over the psychos screaming, she probably wouldn’t have believed she was a real person. What the hell did Atlas do to their assassins to make them so frightening? 

But that didn’t mean Athena was invincible.

She more than anyone knew that no one was. Her dad, a previous DAHL soldier turned mercenary, had his own legacy and crazy stories, but none of that stopped him from losing his leg and nearly his life during one job. Nobody was invincible.

So maybe this was it, maybe this was the job Athena didn’t walk away from and now Byleth had no one to wind down with anymore, no one to sit in a comfortable silence anymore, no one to talk shop about weapon mods or whether bouncy betty grenades are any good; she was even teaching her how to wield a sword properly. Her friend was most likely dead and she had no way of knowing at all and that was just something she would have to deal with, something to get used to.

Maybe she'll mod a weapon in her name, but for now, she needed to get home before the bar got anymore rowdy. She waved at Tector as she exited the Purple Skag and made her way to her home.

As she passed by a narrow alley with bandits robbing or murdering someone, probably both, Byleth remembers in the first few days when Athena went up to space, she remembered driving back to Hollow Point late at night and seeing a faint light in the sky and seeing something coming from the Hyperion space station and hitting Elpis, right where the giant crack in its surface was. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she remembers only seeing it for the next couple of days before looking up at the moon on another day and whatever it was, it had stopped. After that, anytime she left Hollow Point, she made sure to glance up at the moon whenever she could, she wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but for a while it was the only thing holding her together that maybe she would see something or anything as a sign. When she ran over a Skag or two and nearly drove into a ditch, she started making sure to not look up at the moon while driving.

She reached her home, making sure to lift the door slightly to keep it from scraping loudly on the ground, once inside and the door was locked, Byleth could hear her dad snoring on their living room couch. Even when she would tell Jeralt to not to worry and wait up for her, she always found him here when she got home, she was careful to not make any noise grabbing a blanket from his bedroom and covering him with it before making her way to her own room.

As she got ready for bed, Byleth checked her Echo to make sure she hadn’t somehow missed any calls or messages on her way back home. Nothing, and it’s been like that no matter how many times she rechecked over and over again. She sighed, lying down and covered herself with her blanket, the sounds of glass being broken and psychos screaming could be heard distantly outside. Byleth never really lost anyone before, she knows her mom died giving birth to her and her dad almost did die before retiring from mercenary work, but other than that she has nothing to go on. Maybe she should ask Jeralt for advice about it, considering her mom, his stories from his DAHL service and everything after, it definitely sounds like he had been through a lot.

She wonders if Athena lost anyone important before, they never really spoke too much about anything personal, but from what she could gleam from their past conversations, it definitely seemed like she had. Maybe a squad member she was close to?

Though, the other woman would always make it a point to tell her that Atlas conditioned her to not have emotions or to care about anything other than _'the job'_ , so who knows. If Athena was alive and they somehow got to meet again, maybe she should ask her. Actually have something like a personal conversation where they would tell each other things that weren’t just about guns and body counts.

Byleth could feel her eyes growing heavy and her last thought was hoping she could have that talk with her friend.

* * *

Byleth would get her wish after two months had passed.

Pandora’s sun was beating down hot and heavy, her clothes were starting to stick to her, either from sweat or blood, she wasn’t sure anymore after the fifth bandit encampment she had cleared. She had been busy trying to dislodge her knife from a bandit leader’s skull when she got an alert on her Echo and it was Athena.

“I need your help. Sending coordinates.”

That was it, that was the entire call. And yet, it was enough to almost make her cry.

She ripped her knife out, nearly tripping over a body and jumped into her Runner and gunned it. It was a good thing Pandora didn’t have any road rules, or any laws really, because Byleth never drove so fast before in her life, the coordinates she was sent were near the Trash Coast, a place mostly abandoned ever since those Vault Hunters cleared it out years ago.

Byleth wasn’t entirely sure what to expect and why Athena would even need her help, so many theories ran through her head, though nothing she thought of came close to what greeted her. Athena wasn’t alone, instead of bringing back maybe weapons or even expensive stuff to sell off, she brought a woman with her.

A tall blonde woman with burn scars. She’ll have to put a pin on that later.

Despite worrying for so long and feeling like her chest was about to burst, Byleth didn’t say anything to Athena, they barely said anything to each other besides “hey” and a mildly awkward intro to this new woman who was named Janey Springs, before strapping whatever it was they had brought down with them from the moon onto another Runner at the Catch-A-Ride and making their way back to Hollow Point. Byleth figured they could stay at her home for now, while not big, their house had enough space since her dad and her didn’t really have a lot of things.

Once they were back, her dad gave a similar welcome to Athena, a quick nod and a gruff hello, Jeralt and her always seemed to have some understanding, before helping them carry their things to an empty space. Janey’s lively attitude was probably the most colorful thing in their home now, she did most of the talking which Byleth and she knew her dad was grateful for, whoever this woman was, she had a lot to talk about. When they had a suitable space to sleep, Janey asked if there was anywhere that could probably need a junker or mechanic for hire, Jeralt suggested the Catch-A-Ride though she would need to contact the man who ran them before she headed over there.

With mostly everything settled, Janey seemed to have enraptured Jeralt with stories from Elpis and while Byleth would’ve liked listening to them as well, it was eating her up inside with how much she wanted to talk to Athena. Not saying a word, she nudged the smaller woman and motioned towards the door before walking away and waited outside.

She could briefly hear the muffled voices from inside stop and pick back up for a moment, the door didn’t make any sound when it opened, Athena remembered to pick it up. So now they were outside and usually the silence would be comforting, but this time there was something else hanging over them and neither of them really knew how to break it.

Byleth watched as one of the lightbulbs on a building across from them blinked out. “What happened up there?” All Athena did was duck her head, her scarf hiding her face before lightly shaking her head. “I screwed up.”

Somehow that opened the floodgates and Athena proceeded to tell her what happened the second she crashed into Helios, the Hyperion space station. From meeting Jack to fighting SCAVS and an abandoned DAHL unit called the Lost Legion, how they were racing against the clock to stop the laser on Helios from blowing Elpis to smithereens, how they found an old military AI and rescued her only to use her to create a new type of Hyperion robot to even the odds against the Lost Legion which ending up deleting her entire personality, to rescuing the Hyperion scientists only for Jack to kill them in the end to prevent them from betraying them, killing Zarpedon the Lost Legion's commander and the vault.

The Vault on Elpis was real.

And it held a terrible secret, knowledge of another Vault on Pandora that housed a super weapon and Jack was hellbent on getting to it. Byleth wasn’t sure how long they must have been standing there outside while Athena told her story, but she sure wished she had decided to sit down by the end of it. 

It was a lot to take in.

Athena sighed. “Things were supposed to be different after Atlas, but all I did was just end up repeating the same mistake. Only it’s worse.”

“You couldn’t have known Jack would turn out like that and even if you did walk away, it sounds like he still would’ve accomplished his goal if the other vault hunters with you were on his side.”

“Maybe, it doesn't mean I don’t hate it.” The leather of Athena’s gloves creaked as she clenched her hands. “But now, I can’t do anything, it’s not my fight anymore. I need to make sure Janey is safe.”

Ah yes, the other thing Bylth was curious about.

“Speaking of her, you go up to the moon and come back down with a girlfriend, how did that happen?”

Athena had the decency to at least seem embarrassed. “She was... nice.” Byleth starred. “That’s it?”

Athena shrugged. “I mean there’s more, but she was just… nice to me.”

“Huh. Cute.”

“Fuck you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you like my unnecessary detailed knowledge about Borderlands? No, well, why are you even here?  
> Anyway, while fixing things up and everything, I got super emotional about Byleth and Athena being friends and how they could bond considering they're literally so social inept and believe they don't' have emotions and nothing much killing machines and it's like wow. I need to sleep.
> 
> Anyway, I also starting visualizing how I wanted to end this fic and somehow it got away from me, I originally just wanted like a oneshot or a twoshot and now it's this whole thing in my head that I really want to see it to the end. Ironic because the one time I did do a chaptered story, I nearly fried my brain, I don't do planning very well.
> 
> So we shall see how things play out. Bye!

**Author's Note:**

> You can not convince me Janey Springs, literally the only lesbian character I've seen successfully talk to and flirt openly with other women she was interested in. Also, her future girlfriend and wife is also an emotionally repressed traumatized child soldier.
> 
> So. Same hat.
> 
> I really wanted Edelgard to take notice of Janey's burn scars, but I was also worried of the timeline of this considering it's 2-3 years between Borderlands 1 and the PreSequel and before Athena gets to Elpis to work for Jack. So somewhere in there was Janey losing Steph, though thank god there isn't a set date for that lol


End file.
